frederic boyer

Styles

Do you fear style in poetry?

Do you skeptic it?

Once the style is figured out, does it become less impactful?

My favorite writers are styled.

Their words have good hair.

Lack of style seems to be what keeps good words from becoming distinguished words.

I still look for things that I think are “cool”

“Cool” I think appeals to the mind more than the heart.

It doesn’t need to be overt.

“Cool” is the neon sign that comes to mind when reading Cows by Frederic Boyer just published in the new Puerto Del Sol

V.
The cows are useful and sure. Their existence is an infinite number of successive
presents.
It is thus understandable with what pleasure we exterminated them.
The cows are only themselves when gathering into their own finitude the infinite
totality in which they found themselves. Beneath a tree. In a meadow. On the earth
lost in the universe.
The human being is quickly jealous of the cows. Oh, if only the gods would arm
me with such power—comes the muffled voice of tiny Telemachus that is held in The
Odyssey.
The cows don’t read what’s in our hearts. They don’t understand us any better
than we understand ourselves. They ask neither for our recognition nor our gratitude
nor our hate as we ask it of ourselves. And never have we contemplated them in their
truth.
Thought, the cows immediately knew in our presence, betrays general indifference.
It’s only when dangers become evident that indifference ends. In our presence
the cows learned this at their own expense.

Craft Notes / 30 Comments
April 1st, 2010 / 12:17 pm